


Art Heals

by fojee



Series: Puzzle Pieces [7]
Category: I Remember You - Fandom, Korean Drama, 너를 기억해 | Hello Monster
Genre: Alternate Universe, Incest, M/M, Multi, but nothing explicit, disturbing talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 19:51:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4679201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fojee/pseuds/fojee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Choi Eun-Bok goes to therapy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Art Heals

**Author's Note:**

> Despite the tags, this is mostly gen. And sort of outsider pov, with Choi Eun-Bok being practically an oc.

"You want me to what?" Choi Eun-Bok asks the man across the table. "No. There's no way I'm doing that."

Lee Hyun smirks at him. "It's up to you, of course, Choi Eun-Bok-sshi. You cannot teach an unwilling heart."

He's been going to his sessions religiously. Not because they were mandatory--they weren't--but because Ahjussi called him again with another set of very precise instructions. Do what Lee Hyun tells you.

What's so special about this guy, anyway? He's rude, arrogant, oh and he likes to sleep with men. So what if he's some kind of genius? So what if he seems to be able to read his mind?

"There is no way I'm taking my clothes off in front of some dude."

"It isn't just _some dude_ , Eun-Bok-sshi. And I'll be there to supervise, I promise."

Eun-Bok rubs the back of his neck. He feels on the verge of a panic attack at the mere thought. Fuck this. He doesn't need this crap.

But when he walks out of the Lee Hyun-sshi's office, Ahjussi is leaning against the wall. 

"We only want what's best for you, Eun-Bok-a," he says, almost pouting. "If you can't trust us, how can you trust anyone else?"

Since when did there become an 'us'? How did Lee Hyun--or 'David,' as he prefers to be called at the station--join hands with Ahjussi mere months after getting shackled to his own basement? Stockholm Syndrome? Or maybe some kind of sex thing? Eun-Bok shudders and wishes he could scrub his brain.

He tries to draw enough breath to give a sarcastic reply. But there's something lodged in his throat. He chokes on another inhalation, and has to grope for the wall before he could fall over. Then Ahjussi is there, holding him together, crooning some nonsense into his ear. The office door opens and David is there, too, and they half-carry him inside onto the long couch against a wall, and he lies there panting while Ahjussi grips his leg, and David pushes at his abdomen and whispers instructions to him.

"Tense and relax, Eun-Bok-a, just tense and relax. That's just fear. It comes and goes, and we do what we have to do in spite of it. There, a deep breath, count to five, then breathe it out. Do it again for me, come on." Eun-Bok closes his eyes, just trying to breathe.

There is silence for a while. Then he feels a damp washcloth running over his face. It feels good. He lets out a little sigh. He's almost on the verge of falling asleep, when they start to talk.

"I'll make sure he comes."

"He needs to consent to it first. Stop bullying people just because you think you know best. You always..."

Eun-Bok opens his eyes, curious about why they stopped. In a corner of the room, Ahjussi is kissing David, bracketing his body with his own.

Eun-Bok feels too warm, all of a sudden. He closes his eyes again, trying not to listen to the soft noises. He feels exposed even if he knows they're not paying him any attention at all.

"We're not finished with this discussion."

"Are we still talking about your patient, or about yourself?"

"It's the same thing, isn't it? We're both yours." David's voice drips with irony.

And Eun-Bok suddenly realizes in a moment of clarity: they're _all_ suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

\---

He shows up anyway. He has three layers on, and he stands at the doorway with his hands shoved in his pockets.

David meets him and squeezes his shoulder for a second, before leading him into a studio. Ahjussi isn't there, for which he is grateful, but the one sitting in front of an easel is that kid, Ahjussi's shadow.

"I'll just get you something to drink. Play nice," the last is directed at the kid, who smirks. 

"Take off your jacket, at least," he says. "You look like you're going to pass out from overheating."

The kid gets up, and walks around him as he shrugs the jacket off. He reddens, but stands his ground.

"You're not bad-looking," he muses.

"David said my face wouldn't be on display," he protests, panic rising. 

The kid rolls his eyes. "You guys are so boring. Fine. I'll just have to find something else to paint."

"You're Jung Sun-Ho right?"

The kid laughs. "We're practically family! You can call me Min."

"I think I prefer Sun-Ho."

The kid sighs. "Do as you like." He tugs the bottom of Eun-Bok's sweater. "Another layer off please. We can start with your polo."

Eun-Bok reluctantly pulls it over his head. While his arms are raised, he feels fingers scrape on his lower stomach, and he freezes, before stumbling back. "Don't touch me!"

Sun-Ho raises his hands. "That'll make things more difficult," he mutters, still eyeing him up and down. "But doable, I suppose. You're not ticklish, are you?" 

Eun-Bok shrugs. He has no idea and no desire to find out. He's ready to leave already but David comes back with a tray of tea.

"So I guess you already know each other, right? No need for introductions?"

The two share a glance. They know _of_ each other. 

David ruffles Sun-Ho's hair. "Min here will sketch you for a bit, and then if you're still willing to proceed we can do something a little more interactive."

Eun-Bok wonders what that means. 

But it starts out easy enough. The kid gets him to stand in the middle of the room. He longs to fidget, but David starts talking, and then the kid joins in and their steady patter distracts him, even when he gets told to unbutton his shirt.

"New York has the best museums. I'll have to take you sometime, Min-a. I think you'll love The Met. They have some beautiful Greek and Roman sculptures."

"Which one's your favorite?"

"Perseus, holding Medusa's head aloft. It's very theatrical."

"I'd love to see the ones by Degas."

"Have you ever tried another medium? I can just see you with a blowtorch. Or a chisel and hammer."

The kid laughs. "I like paint too much."

"What do you like about it?"

"The smells, the colors. It's pretty undemanding as far as materials go."

The back and forth lulls him, so that when Sun-Ho directs him to take his shirt off, he does so without another thought. 

But then they stop talking, and Eun-Bok feels their eyes on his body. He tenses, crumpled polo in hand. 

"Why don't you get him something to sit on, hyung," Sun-Ho says in a mild, noncommittal tone.

David grabs a wooden box from a corner and drags it to the center of the room. Eun-Bok shrinks away from him, but David meets his eyes without flinching. "It's alright, Eun-Bok-sshi. You're safe here."

That is the most ridiculous thing he's heard all day and he lets out a bark of laughter, before bending to sit on the box.

"No, turn around. You didn't want your face in it, right?"

Eun-Bok takes a deep breath then does as he's told.

His back is much worse, he knew. His father liked to use a long wooden stick. He's pale enough that they almost blend in, but there are too many, one on top of the other. He feels David's hand hovering over them, and he hunches his shoulders. But then David moves away and Sun-Ho grabs his palette and squeezes some tubes of paint down on it. 

"Samchon killed a man once."

David shifts on his seat in the corner. "Min-a..." He starts

But the kid talks on. "I remember his whole face was red. Almost violet. He was shouting these curses, struggling like a fish on a hook, but he was crying soon enough." Sun-Ho pauses. "He had raped his own son. Joon Young cut his dick off and made him eat it."

Eun-Bok's breath hitches, but he doesn't say a word.

"Then there was this guy who had burned his daughter. Joon Young cut off his fingers and toes, then sawed his arms at the elbows and his legs at the knees. It took him weeks to die. She survived, though. With a new face and everything."

Eun-Bok shudders. His breathing seems to be slowing down with each of Sun-Ho's tales.

On David, though, the effect is quite the opposite. He gets agitated, and finally stands up. "I have to..." He gestures at the door, and then flees.

"You'll have to excuse my hyung. He's not usually squeamish, but he doesn't like to hear about me growing up with samchon."

"Is he really your brother?" Eun-Bok asks impulsively, remembering what he had seen at the basement. 

"Yes," Sun-Ho replies. "Father, brother, lover. He's my everything."

Eun-Bok twitches but keeps silent.

"Alright. I'm done. You can take a ten-minute break. Have a look around, while I get some other materials." Sun-Ho puts down his brush and leaves the room.

It feels good to stretch. Eun-Bok grabs his shirt right away and puts it back on. Then takes a walk clock-wise around the room, leaving the easel for last. Some of the canvases in the back seem darker, and not just in subject matter. The backgrounds feel a bit flat, and there's a sense of muddiness to the shades used. More than once he sees detached limbs, or a man with two separate heads.

The more recent ones are livelier, with a brighter color scheme. A row of dancing demons, vivid red against a blue background. A woman trapped inside a clear vase with purple flowers. There's an eerie still life of bloody surgical knives arrayed on a silver tray. There are nudes too, in various positions. Eun-Bok averts his eyes in case he recognized any of them.

Then there's today's work. A sketchpad is open on a table, and he sees himself rendered in pencil, face a mere smudge, shirt hanging unbuttoned over his too-thin frame, jeans cross-hatched. It looks both like him and unlike him.

The canvas propped on the easel contains something entirely different. 

His scars, lovingly painted in silver over his pale flesh. Those are the first thing Eun-Bok sees. Then he steps back and looks at the whole. The figure in the painting is hunched over, head bowed and turned away. It looks like defeat at first glance, but the way the muscles are tensed, and the way the hands are clenched against the man's side, leaves him with a feeling of expectation.

Like asking, what will this man do?

Sun-Ho enters the room again, and David is at his heels, face apologetic and reassuring all at once. Eun-bok focuses on what the kid is holding: a camera and a tripod, and a couple of cans of some kind of paint.

He's getting nervous again. "Why the two headed guy?" He asks to cover his own awkwardness. 

Sun-Ho lets out a small laugh. "I usually tell people it's something really deep, like it represents the struggle within each person between their better and worse natures. But really I've been drawing that image for a long time, since before I could even read." He glances quickly at David, whose arms are crossed and whose expression is suddenly stony. "It's just a recurring nightmare I have."

"Ah," Eun-Bok replies. "Sorry. I was just curious."

"It's nothing. Now how about you take your shirt off again and we'll try something different?"

"Different how?" He asks, eyeing the camera that Sun-Ho is setting up.

"You'll be my canvas. No touching, I promise. We'll find out if you're really ticklish or not."

David nods at him when Eun-Bok catches his eye. He sighs and shrugs his polo off again. Sun-Ho directs him back to the box and he sits down, back to the other two men in the room. He hears more than sees when the cans of paint snick open. Then he feels a presence behind him.

"Just breathe, Eun-Bok-sshi," David reminds him. He inhales in surprise. He doesn't realize he's been holding his breath. His heart is pounding so hard that he almost jumps when he feels the first touch. Of bristles. It's just a brush, he tells himself.

"Sssh," Sun-Ho says. "Just try to be as still as possible."

The brush glides down just below his right shoulder blade. It feels like the most intimate act he's ever participated in, and he shivers in spite of himself. Sun-Ho pauses then continues, reading his body as he paints over his flesh.

There's no talking now. Nothing but the noises in his own head.

When the brush touches his lower back, Eun-Bok has to stifle a moan. No, he's not ticklish. But he's a little bit turned on.

He hangs his head lower and thinks of paperwork.

When the kid finishes, it took him awhile to realize. But suddenly Sun-Ho is fiddling with the camera, and telling him to stand.

David removes the box without being told. Eun-Bok hears the shutter click a few times. "Turn your head a little. Not too much. There. Just hold still for a while." Eun-Bok flexes his back, feeling nothing but wetness there. 

"I'm done. Want to see?" 

He thinks about putting his shirt back on first, but he doesn't want to ruin it with paint. He peers into the camera's screen that Sun-Ho is holding up to him.

He sees a man standing, face turned just enough that you can see the hint of nose and mouth, and on his back are wings, black wings tipped with silver.

He looks... Breath-taking.

"I'll give you a print," Sun-Ho says almost shyly. "And the painting, too, if you'd like." Eun-Bok manages a nod.

David hands him a towel. "You can shower the paint off here if you want."

"Yeah. It's water-based so it should wash right off. The bathroom's the first door on your left through there," Sun-Ho says, then adds. "Eun-Bok-sshi, you may want to consider getting a tattoo. It can be a way of reclaiming your body."

In the bathroom, his eyes closed to the sluice of the water, Eun-Bok thinks about it. It would be different. More painful for one. But he has a high pain threshold. He would have to endure someone else's touch. He'd have to get really drunk for it. But. It sounds like a terrible idea that might just work.

\---

When he slips out later, he's only wearing two layers. And then Eun-Bok stops by the door of the studio, the part of him that's a cop automatically eavesdropping to the two men inside.

"Are you planning on doing this a lot? Using me for your therapy? I should start charging."

"It gives me more time to see you. And I like watching you paint." Those soft noises again. "Min-a, about what you said in there to Eun-Bok-sshi..."

"Are you going to fight with samchon again? Because we all know how that ends. Lots and lots of fucking."

"Min-a, I know killing seems sometimes like the natural next step, and even a rational one, but just promise me you'll try for a less drastic solution first. You're going to be a lawyer now. Can't you trust that the law will punish people?"

Laughter. "A lawyer knows all the weaknesses of the system, hyung."

"Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should."

"But if there's no other way..."

A loud sigh. "If there's no other way, then we'll talk about it."

 _Safe place, huh._ Eun-Bok thinks, smiling wryly. _There's no such thing._ He walks into the room anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I just visited New York's Metropolitan Museum, so I had Art on the Brain. Hence this thing... There'll be a third in the "Art..." series, but I'm still writing it, so the next couple of fics you will get are shorter transition fics that showcase more Cha Ji An, and more Lee Joon Young.


End file.
